'Spamalot' Smells, Of Success

The Tony Awards are still days away, but one show has already taken the unofficial prize as a Broadway Behemoth: Monty Python's Spamalot.

It has 14 nominations, and nonstop buzz that many, on or off Broadway, would love to have.

The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith observes that the show is based, more or less, on the movie, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

David Hyde Pierce, of "Frasier" fame, plays several parts, including the reluctant knight, Sir Robin.

Smith sat down with two "Spamalot" stars, both Best Actor nominees: Tim Curry, who portrays King Arthur, and Hank Azaria, who plays several characters, including Sir Lancelot.

Asked if they thought, as they began work on "Spamalot," that it would be as funny and successful as it's turning out to be, Azaria said, "thought it had a chance to be. It's always a roll of the dice, but I thought we had better odds than usual."

Curry remarked, "I don't know I think it always had a smell."

"You thought it had a smell?" Smith repeated.

"It had a smell," Curry confirmed.

"Of success?" Smith pressed.

"Absolutely!" Curry laughed.

"I was wondering why your nose was turning up!" Smith joked.

Despite the title, the show is more than a tribute to Monty Python's greatest bits.Smith mentioned, "To me, it's two shows, the Monty Python material everyone knows, and then there's the musical that hates all musicals."

"It's kind of true," Azaria says.

"I don't know that it hates all musicals," Curry comments, "but it certainly has a healthy disrespect for all musicals."

Unlike most other Monty Python productions, there is a strong female presence, a diva, Sara Ramirez.

The play contains a quasi-romance "which was not in the play when we started at all," Curry points out.

He agrees with Smith's assessment that, "They let girls be in this play."

"Yeah," says Curry. "Well, a girl," anyway.

"The miracle of Sara Ramirez," Curry continues, "is that not only does she have one of the world's great voices, but she's extremely smart and funny, and it's a killer combination."

"Which is more important to you," Smith wondered, "the acknowledgement by your peers that what you do is so great, or to have crowds jumping up at the end every night screaming, 'More, more, more?' "

"In this case," Azaria replied, "it's the crowds. I already feel so privileged and overachieving to have a Tony nomination and be a part of this thing, especially as a Python freak growing up. …To deliver Python in this version to people every day is plenty for me, let alone having as much fun as we're having doing it."

Says Curry: "People actually do come back and say their face hurts, and they didn't want it to stop. And that's really wonderful, particularly in the times in which we live. It's not a particularly cheery time to live, so it's good that there's something truly silly out there."